Smile Train, Makueni County in partnership to eradicate cleft lip & palate.

Smile Train, a leading charity organization supporting free corrective surgeries and comprehensive care on cleft repair and treatment, has partnered with Makueni county to eradicate the existing buildup of unrepaired clefts by building local capacity to ensure continuity of offering high-quality and desirable treatment for children and adults with cleft lip and cleft palate in the county.

Chief Officer Health Services, Makueni County, Dr. Musyoki Kibwana (left) with The Minister for Health, Makueni County, Dr. Andrew Mulwa, holding a patient born with a cleft in Makueni County Referral Hospital

The five- year MOU was signed late last year and seeks to offer free cleft treatment to patients in Makueni County by offering first hand training to health professionals working within the county. With this partnership, SmileTrain has been training surgeons on the latest technology for cleft surgeries to improve the outcome for patients. In addition, the charity organization has been training community health workers on how to identify cleft patients from the grassroots level and sensitize communities on the need to seek early treatment for patients with such conditions.

Speaking at the Makueni County Referral Hospital during an outreach programme conducted by Smile Train, The Minister for Health, Makueni County, Dr. Andrew Mulwa, said that this partnership will help intensify outreach so that cleft patients within the county can benefit from the free surgeries and get a chance to lead a normal life. “The county government of Makueni is pleased to continuously partner with SmileTrain as their focused approach of empowering local medical professionals to treat children and adults with clefts in their own communities has helped many families in this region smile. It has also ensured a brighter future for them.” he added.

Also present was the Chief Officer Health Services, Makueni County, Dr. Musyoki Kibwana who said that it has also helped in providing facilities with new and improved technology to repair the clefts. “We hope that this partnership will cut across all the hospitals in the region by providing families with hope that they will indeed live a normal life.” Families have come today from far counties such as Bungoma, Kajiado and Garissa counties to seek help. This shows to say that indeed the outreach is impactful and successful.”

“We are grateful to the County Government of Makueni for their support in eradicating clefts in the community. In just under five years since this partnership, we have been able to provide funding to support free cleft surgeries to over 60 patients with kindness of others to achieve our vision.” said Jane Ngige, SmileTrain Program Director, East Africa. “By celebrating our 100,000th cleft milestone surgeries last year, it gives us more devotion to achieve our vision through partnerships by working together and changing the world one smile at a time.”

Smile Train says it is keen on sustainable empowerment programmes that give local medical partners the opportunity to build capacity. There are 170,000 estimated number of cleft births in the developing world with Kenya recording an annual figure of 1,300 cleft births annually.

Globally, 1 in 700 babies are born with a cleft lip and/or palate. Clefts are the leading birth defect in many developing countries. The cleft incidence rate of individuals of African descent is approximately 1 in 1,200 births. No one knows exactly what the cause of a cleft lip and palate is, but most experts agree that the causes are multifactorial and may include a genetic predisposition as well as environmental issues such as drug and alcohol use, smoking, maternal illness, infections and lack of folic acid.

For more information about Smile Train's global efforts and to make a donation, please visit smiletrain.org. To refer a patient or support cleft care in Africa, you may follow them on Facebook (facebook.com/SmileTrainAfrica), on Twitter @SmileTrainAfric